My wife and I went to the Grand Old Days street festival in St. Paul
yesterday, as we do every year. Over 250,000 people show up for this Sunday event annually. This year, there were numerous small groups of people canvassing for petition signatures and commitments against the obscene marriage amendment in Minnesota that we'll be voting on in November. Along the three mile route down Grand Avenue, I met at least 12 groups of several people with the petitions, etc. The effort to get people to vote NO on this amendment is well-organized and very active. It's made up of both LGBT folks and allies, and it's very encouraging to see the extent of it.
My wife and I have donated to this effort, and I'm promoting the NO vote on the DFL precinct website I maintain. We were at Grand Old Days with my sister and brother-in-law, who were visiting from California for the weekend. My brother-in-law is a right winger, but listened to my pitch for this NO vote after meeting my sister's cousin and his partner of 27 years. The partner has a dental office right on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, and we watched the parade from there, not telling my brother-in-law about their relationship. He got involved in conversation with both men as the parade was going on and seemed to be enjoying it. A little later he asked if I thought they were gay. I laughed and told him about their long-term relationship and what great friends they were of ours, and that's what led to a good discussion of the whole marriage equality issue. I had deliberately not told him in advance, because I knew he'd get along famously with both of them.
Despite his right-wing point of view, he was impressed by both men and allowed as how maybe it might possibly be OK for same-sex couples to marry. You could see the gears in his somewhat pointy head processing all of this, and that has to be a good thing. That kind of reaction is why I believe that marriage equality is inevitable in this country. As more and more people who have opposed it discover that people they meet and enjoy talking to are LGBT, it becomes harder and harder for them to maintain a view against marriage equality.
Anyhow, I'm feeling better all the time about the chances of defeating this amendment in Minnesota.
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You handled your brother-in-law most adroitly!
And this is how we make the future happen, even sooner than we had thought it might.
Good for you!
I'll bet you're still stain-resistant, too. 
I live about a mile from the 3M headquarters campus, and drive by it often.
